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Looking At Art Philosophically

Name: Looking At Art Philosophically
Author: Tom Supensky
ISBN: 978-1477249390

AESTHETIC CONCEPTS FUNDAMENTAL TO BEING AN ARTIST

by Tom Supensky ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 31, 2012

A staid, unfocused but visually absorbing meditation on the arts.

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Deep but somewhat vague ruminations on the making and viewing of art.

Supensky, a sculptor and emeritus professor at Towson University, cites no philosophers and elaborates no specific doctrine, but ranges widely across some of the perennial questions surrounding art. He allows that aesthetics is “an ingredient that defies a definition” yet floats a loose characterization anyway: A true work of art proceeds from a conscious purpose, tries to communicate, applies a skillful technique, has an “element of mystery” that can spark the viewer’s imagination, and stands out from mass-produced commodities by properties of uniqueness, authorship and marks of flawed humanity. (Qualifying that last stricture, he feels that a traffic sign can become art if mounted in a gallery.) Moreover, he insists, good art must be “honest,” by which he means an expression of the artist’s individuality; he therefore enjoins readers to find their own style rather than emulating other artists, even suggesting that readers heighten their self-knowledge by donning a mask and viewing themselves nude in the mirror. Supensky goes on to address some of the practicalities of making a career out of art: For instance, teaching children for a living, he warns, will stunt an adult artist’s skill and ambition. He also takes up a few set-piece problems that have perennially haunted artists, arguing that, no, a 4-year-old could not have painted a Jackson Pollock masterpiece. Supensky raises some interesting queries—“If I drive my automobile over a muddy road and leave tracks without intending them to be art, can I later return to the tracks and proclaim them to be art?”—but his rather slapdash treatment of them could have been sharpened by a more involved conversation with philosophical literature. The diffident prose isn’t particularly stimulating, either. On the other hand, the color photos—the best part of the book—feature an eclectic array of artworks, including Grecian vases, abstract paintings and a few of the author’s own witty clay sculptures.

A staid, unfocused but visually absorbing meditation on the arts.

Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2012

ISBN: 978-1477249390

Page Count: 68

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Review Posted Online: March 28, 2013

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

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Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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IN MY PLACE

by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992

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From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)